Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
Reader Steven Clifford Cohen asks: “I disabled the driver for the camera on my laptop. I also put tape over it. Is that enough?” Enough to prevent video-based snooping, sure. But opaque tape alone would do that; a camera can’t see through an opaque object, period. However, if you’re really worried about remote-snooping, consider the…
Reader Jenni Wieter asks; “What is your favorite laptop that you have ever had or used and why?” Hmmm. Two top contenders come to mind: Model 100: This was my first portable computer: a TRS-100. Back in the day when PC’s were usually bulky, desktop units with several separate components, this lightweight, all-in-one portable design…
Closing the lid on a furiously-churning PC is kind of asking for trouble. Depending on how your laptop/notebook is set up, closing the lid might put the system into sleep/suspend mode; or hybrid sleep mode; or hibernation; or could invoke full power-off. If closing the lid kills power to the PC, you could end up…
A bad sector is a small area on the hard drive’s surface that’s unreliable or unreadable; and that the drive’s own software, or the PC’s operating system, has marked as off limits so no new data will be written there. By itself, it’s nothing to worry about. For example, one sector on a typical NTFS-formatted…
Reader Emily Long sent in this urgent note — from her smartphone, I presume! “A couple of hours ago I spilled water on my laptop, I’ve turned it off, dried the keyboard and it is currently sitting keyboard down while I wait for any possible water to drain out. Will it be fine when it…
No, of course it’s not safe! But if you’re patient, you can make it safe. Here’s how: First, scan the old, infected system using an external, self-contained, bootable, DVD- or flashdrive-based anti-malware tool. (Examples; many are free.) Boot and run the old PC from the anti-malware DVD or flash drive — not from its infected…
Removing active malware will stop it from doing further or future local damage, but that’s all. You may still have trouble left over from the original, now-removed infection source. For example, removing ransomware from your PC or phone won’t automatically decrypt your files — they’ll still be inaccessible. You’ll have to restore your device from…
How about $0.00? Plug the drive into any PC that’s on the network; use that PC’s built-in OS tools to “share” the drive on the net. For example, let’s say you plug the drive into a Windows 10 PC. When Windows recognizes the drive and assigns it a drive letter, right click on that drive’s…
Reader Sheldon Doskie asks: “Hi Fred, Great to see you back! Are you aware of a problem when trying to update the latest virus signatures of the Malwarebytes free version? I keep getting ‘unable to access update server,’ then after a minute or so, the current date followed by a 2-digit number is displayed as…
Sure, within reason. Merely being outdoors or in motion won’t hurt a desktop PC. But impact, moisture, or temperature might. If the PC is properly and fully shut down before moving; and is protected/padded from sharp jolts, bumps, bangs, and such; and is kept dry and at human-comfortable temperatures; it should be safe to transport…